allowing ceremony

It’s a Monday morning here, and beautiful — slow blue filling the sky, and I keep my eye out for the deer that like to stroll along the hill behind our apt building, munching on grass and weeds, keeping a kind of watch.

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Thanks to all who came out for this month’s Writing the Flood! We had a fantastic gathering of folks in a new, gorgeous, peaceful space over in Berkeley — I’m imagining, for a time, that maybe we’ll move back and forth between San Francisco and the East Bay for this workshop. Our April Writing the Flood meets on the 9th, which is the second Saturday of the month — on the third Saturday, I’ll be celebrating good friends getting married, then will head south for the Body Heat: Queer Femme Tour!

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This morning, I am thinking about the ways that we who have experienced trauma, in maybe any form, reinsinuate, reintegrate ourselves into humanity, into our communities, into something called family. This maybe isn’t writing that I can do on the computer — it’s too big and messy for the containment of typed letters and a little blog box. I don’t have an answer to this question; I still, often, feel outside of humanity — not above, but other(ed), unwelcome. That there are people, and then there’s Jen. That, too, the people around me know something about being human that I missed out on learning during the years our stepfather controlled almost every aspect of our lives, essential things about being a friend, being a coworker, being alive.

How do we undo this experience? I know I’m not alone in this feeling, even as that’s the point of the experience: to isolate. Those outside of the pack get taken down by predators.

And intellectually, I know I’m not outside of humanity — I, too, know that some friends, who are not trauma survivors, sometimes share this feeling of being outside, being other.

So I’m curious about the ways we are welcomed back into humanity, if we are at all. I think there used to be ritual, in the old religions/spiritual ways/ways of human engagement — I think there used to be ceremony to welcome, for example, the warrior back home. We need those rituals now. And what are the ways to welcome the raped woman/man/person, the child abused and neglected, back into connection and community? Rituals that would apologize and make amends even as they washed and said, we want you here, if you want to be here. What are those ways?

What are the ways you have found, to reengage with community, to again let humanity feel like a part of who you are (if, indeed, you ever felt inside of that experience)?

I have found it through political organizing, through social change work, through creative engagement/writing with others, through risky conversations with friends. I have found it sometimes when I was drinking, when alcohol let me drop that inside guard down — now I want to find the way to bring down that inside wall without need of drunkenness/selfmedication.

But there’s more that I want. I want a ceremony. I want a gathering of all the people, all my blood family on my mother’s and father’s side, friends of mine and my sister’s from elementary school,. jr high, high school, college, after college, friends and colleagues of my mother and father and stepfather (but not to have my stepfather there at all) and I want to be on open land near the sea, and I want candles and sunlight and blue sky, and I want us to tell our stories. All of us. This is who I was, this is what I went through after my mother remarried, this is who I am now. I want to spill it all out and be free of it, let it be out of my soft gut and low intestines and throat. I want to know that they all, all these people, all these connections, all this human family, help hold this story with me. What happened to us happened to all of us, happened to everyone who loved/s us, happened to our whole community. When does our whole community, our whole enormous extended (human) family, get the chance to heal? And then I want to know their stories. I want to know what I can hold along with them that is too heavy for them to carry alone. That is a part of my experience and understanding of community and family. I want us to be fed well and joyfully, to have times to walk by the sea and lots of time to rest. I want dancing and hugging. I want someone facilitating the process, someone knowledgeable in the ways of loss and ceremony and human desire and spirit; I want to know that something bigger than us is there, holding us all, watching and grateful or at least nodding.

This is a big fantasy, but it could be a much longer write, with much more detail. Fantasy serves us very well sometimes, allowing us to step into desire that we can’t or might not want to or aren’t yet ready to act out or have come ‘true’ in the physical plane. Sometimes, fantasy is realization, too.

If there were a ceremony that you could design, that could bridge your way (or your character’s way) back into a sense of community and/with humanity, what would that look like? Who would be there? Where would it be held, and at what time of year? Climb into the details, if you want to, and don’t call it ritual or ceremony if that’s triggering or doesn’t work for you — use the language that you prefer and like. Call it gathering or church or party or — give yourself 10 or 20 minutes. Follow your writing wherever it seems to want to go.

Thank you for your persistence and generosity of spirit. Thank you for all the creative ways you have allowed humanity to hold you, even when it has disappointed and failed you. Thank you for your words your words your words.

2 responses to “allowing ceremony”

Oh, yes, absolutely — I wrote this, posted it, and dashed away from the computer! The “cannot stay and rest here” is with me, too, Renee; it’s a touching, peeking around the corner, coming at it slant sort of story, I think…

Oh Jen. I stop in the middle of the ad selling, running to clean the house while the slow web server loads my work emails, in the middle of typing up my ragged poem that’s due in a few hours- to read.

And I am, once again, cracked wide open.
By the weight and the light in your words.
By the things that resonate in me so loudly my ears ring. By the lump in my throat that forms around your telling. By the pain and years and wondering and saying and naming that makes my breathing shallow and quick and my rabbit heart kicks in and I want to run fast and hide from the truth of it that is so amazing, clear- present. By your writing that is so very full and deep, so very accessible to me, even as I turn full rabbit and run away because I cannot stay and rest here- not yet.

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The mission: We offer safe, confidential writing groups to a broad cross-section of the community, and in particular to those who are living in the aftermath of intimate violences. We engage a non-clinical, transformative and communal approach for those living with and in the aftermath of trauma, and recognize that resurrecting our own language and stories is a necessary part of re-ordering ourselves after trauma.

The vision: Writing Ourselves Whole seeks to change the world through writing. We exist in the service of transforming struggle into art, turning isolation toward community, and creating spaces in which individuals may come to recognize the artist/writer within.

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What They’re Saying

I just wanted to send a quick note your way after yet another wonderful workshop experience in your lovely home. Thank you for creating such a safe space for people to write. Thank you for welcoming me into your workshop. Thank you for being such an excellent facilitator (and writer!). I left feeling challenged, inspired and whole. ~Lela Tuhtan (Writing The Flood)